“For me, running is personal. My love of running, both as a sport and as an activity, fuels my creativity as a professional photographer. Likewise, my love of photography and working with athletes is what initially inspired me to start running. It’s a perfect loop.”
Running is a simple activity, and yet, its simplicity disguises hidden depths. Like an iceberg, what you see is less than half the story. Anyone who has ever run with something resembling ambition will know the feeling - the more you run, the more you realise there is to learn. It doesn't matter whether your ambition is to run 5k without walking or to break 2hrs for a marathon, the second you go all in on running, you discover a world you never knew existed.
Where the uninitiated might imagine running is all about talent, hard work and blinkered intensity, the connoisseur will tell you it's about community, creativity and learning to be humble enough to keep that intensity in check.
The difficulty for any creative comes in capturing that powerful simplicity of movement without downplaying the emotional complexities that make running so rewarding, addictive and enjoyable.
Paul Calver
“Working with athletes, tapping into their knowledge and their passion not only informs what I shoot, but it brings to the photos an authenticity and a natural grace you just can’t fake. In return, via the fees they earn, it allows the athletes to focus on their sport with the reassurance of an income. Our worlds are linked in a virtuous cycle.”
An example of this stretches back to when I first met and photographed Revee Walcott-Nolan
Dale King, Forte
“Paul won’t tell you this, but he’s the one that set Revee’s (modelling career) off, she got booked almost immediately after that shoot.”
Revee Walcot-Nolan
“Yeah, even to to this day, I turn up on set and they've got my images with you on their reference sheet, they are the ones they've booked me from”
My running journey
I started running in 2017, training to run the 2018 London Marathon to raise money for a charity which helped my youngest daughter Maeve during her cancer journey.
I finished in just under 5 hours, physically beaten but happy to have completed the challenge. Thankfully Maeve is now fully recovered, inspiring me to take on new challenges.
The evening after the marathon, muscles still very sore, I decided to sign up for another marathon, but this time, learning from all the classic mistakes made on my first attempt. 11 months later, I managed to clock a time of 2:56 at the Barcelona Marathon. From this point onwards, I was hooked!
I’ve been working as a professional photographer since 2008. I shoot a large range of subject but have always had a fondness for sport and the passionate people who inhabit this world. This has naturally involved shooting a lot of running over the years, in both commercial and personal projects.
Through-out all of my work I like to explore more than just the activity in question, looking under the skin of what drives the people involved.
Come and say hi on Strava, we could even go for a run together, I'm always keen 💫
